I saw this – ‘this’ being a competition to come up with 15 second horror films – but I’m not putting up the video because it got to gross-out in #4 and I could tell that #3 was going to be body horror. I’m not knocking either*, but I do wonder: can you scare somebody via just mood and atmosphere, in 15 seconds? And not by jump scares or other physical reactions, either: I mean straight-up emotional/intellectual terror. I suspect that the answer is ‘no,’ but I don’t know that it’s ‘no.’
Moe Lane
*I’m also not watching either tonight. Some days I’m in the mood for it; some days, I’m not. This would be ‘not.’
It’s seems to me that mood requires some build up, but could be done if budgeted right. Hemingway’s apocryphal Six-word Novel* has always lingered in my mind for such an attampt, but even 15 seconds of fleshing that out in meat-space seems to actually dilute it.
.
.
.
* “For Sale: baby booties. Never worn”
It’s tight, but I can think of ways to pull it off.
The problem is univesitality. That quick a sting is going to depend on the experiences the viewer bringing with them.
.
You’ve been a parent of toddlers, so a quick and increasingly desperate walk through a house with kids of that age is plenty to drive home the fact that something has gone seriously wrong before the last door is opened. (I’d end it with white light washing out anything beyond the door, but that’s just me.)
But it wouldn’t be effective on much of the population.
Wow. Universitality. I’m pretty sure whatever that is above isn’t even a word.
Sure it’s a word. It means “the nature of the secret academic tenets of the Vivekanand Education Society’s Institute of Technology.”